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Survey translations in Akvo FLOW

We’ve just released the Akvo FLOW dashboard 1.6.0 and the field survey app 1.11.0. It’s a combined release that allows users to enter alternate translations for surveys on the dashboard, and then make those available on the Field Survey app. It will be a huge help to our growing partner network by allowing data collectors in the field to conduct surveys in their local language.

Survey translations work in the FLOW dashboard version 1.6.0 and higher, and FLOW field survey app version 1.11.0 and higher. You need to update your field survey app to the latest version to use them. If you don’t update the app, you’ll still be able to enter translations on the dashboard, but you won’t see them when you access the languages list on the field survey app.

Here are the steps for using survey translations in FLOW. The basic survey workflow is still the same, but you need to take a few extra steps to add translations on the dashboard and view them on the device:
– Create and publish a survey with one or more translations
– Assign the survey to your devices
– Navigate and display translations on the device and submit surveys
– Check data on the Dashboard and run reports

The elements that will show their translations on the device are the question text, option question answers and tooltips. The translations of the survey title, survey description and question group names won’t be available on the device in this version.

Before you dive in there is one new concept important to survey translations — the master language. Every survey will have a master language. This is the language in which you will first create the survey, and the language in which you will view and edit data in reports, charts and maps. The default is English if you don’t make another selection when you are initially building the survey.
We’ve made 181 languages available in the language list, but any language with a non-Roman alphabet or any language that reads anything other than left-to-right is experimental at this point. We are working actively with partners to build greater compatibility for different character sets.

You can read about what’s in the rest of the survey translations release in our release notes. Here’s a step-by-step guide for building translations into your surveys:

Creating and publishing a survey with one or more translationsFrom the SURVEYS tab, select a survey group from the left panel in which you’d like to create a new survey for translation, or chose a survey group with an existing survey to which you’d like to add a translation. Once inside the group, click Create New Survey in the upper right or click Edit under the existing survey.
If it’s a new survey, in the Edit survey panel that appears on the left, enter a title for the survey and select a type (both required). Here is where you set the master language for the survey: if you want to change it to something other than English (the default) do that from the MASTER LANGUAGE dropdown. You should not change the master language after you’ve begun to collect data with the survey, so make sure your selection is correct.

Set the master language from the dropdown, and enter and edit translations by clicking MANAGE TRANSLATIONS.

Click Save at the bottom of the left panel. You’ll see a number appear next to ID Number in the left panel after you do this. This is the survey ID.If you are creating a new survey, you’ll create question groups, and then add questions to them. If not, you’ll simply enter translations for the existing questions.
First complete and save the survey in the master language. When you are satisfied, click the “+ MANAGE TRANSLATIONS” button in the left panel. This will bring up the Survey translation screen for the survey. Here you can add one or more translations to your survey. Along the top you’ll see the default (master) language, the existing translations (if you’ve created any) and an ADD NEW TRANSLATION dropdown. Below, you’ll see the master survey details on the left, and the details for the translation on the right, with text boxes to enter a translation for each item.

Enter and edit translations from the survey translation screen

Select a language from the ADD NEW TRANSLATION dropdown along the top of the Survey translation section. Two buttons, ADD and CANCEL, will appear to the right of the dropdown when you do this. Click ADD to proceed with entering a translation for that language. “Survey details in [selected language]” will appear as the heading for the right-hand translation section.

Enter translations for each survey question, tooltip, and question option (if it’s an option question). The translations for survey title, survey description and question group name will not be visible on the device in this version, but they will be in future versions, so you can enter them as well.

To save as you are working, click SAVE AND CONTINUE at the bottom of the window. To save and return to the master survey screen, click SAVE AND CLOSE. You can always revisit the translation screen by clicking the “+ MANAGE TRANSLATIONS” button from the left panel of the Edit survey section. You can also add multiple translations to a single survey by selecting another language from the Add New Translation dropdown and clicking ADD.

When you have completed the translation(s) of your survey, from the bottom left panel, click Publish. This will display a pop-up window confirming your survey has been published, and instructing to you visit the MESSAGES tab to confirm when this is complete. If you have any unsaved changes, you will first see a warning to Save first.
Once the survey has been published, create a new survey assignment specifying the new survey and all devices that should receive it.

Navigate and display translations on the device and submit surveys
Once you have loaded the survey with translations onto a device, you can select any of the available languages and conduct surveys in them. To display one or more translations for a survey, first tap the survey icon for your survey from the field survey app home screen. This will open the survey.
From here, tap your device’s menu button, which will prompt a set of options to slide up from the bottom of the screen. Select Languages. This will display all of the available translations (ie, the ones you entered on the dashboard) for all the surveys on the device.

Tap the menu button and then Languages to select a display language on the field survey app

Tick one or more of the language boxes. Ticking just one language will display just that language for the survey. Ticking more than one will display multiple languages in different colors. The question text, question options, and tooltips will display in all of the translations you’ve selected if they’ve been entered and published from the dashboard.

Complete the survey and click the Submit button at the end. The notifications bar across the top of the phone screen will tell you when the survey data has been successfully submitted. You can also check this from the Survey Status icon from the app home screen, from Review Submitted Surveys.

Check data on the dashboard and run reports
Return to the dashboard and visit the DATA tab. From the Inspect Data table, you will see a live feed of the data submitted from all devices connected to your FLOW dashboard.

To view an individual data record, click Edit from the Action column on the far right of the Inspect Data table. Here you will see the questions and data you submitted in the master language of your survey. Free text answers will of course appear however they were typed into the device.

To run a data report for your survey, go to the REPORTS tab and to the Export Reports section. Select the survey group that contains your survey from the Select Survey Group dropdown, and then select your survey from the Select Survey dropdown once it populates with the surveys from the selected survey group.
Click the Raw Data Report button. The Loading icon will appear while your report runs.

Depending on which browser you are using, the browser will notify you when the report is ready. Open it in Excel and you will see all the questions and data submitted to date in the master language of your test survey. The data do not currently export in any of the translations, only in the master language.
Caetie Ofiesh is product manager for Akvo FLOW

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Akvo creates and runs open source internet and mobile services that make it easy to bring international development work online. We focus on project and programme dashboards, reporting, monitoring, evaluation and making data easier to share. Headquartered in Amsterdam, Akvo is a non-profit foundation that works with more than a thousand organisations around the world.